In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

“We have a candidate who won the presidency, some candidate other than President Trump won the presidency and then chose to issue this particular order, with whatever counsel he took,” Niemeyer said. “Do I understand that just in that circumstance, the executive order should be honored?”

“Yes, your honor, I think in that case, it could be constitutional,” Jadwat admitted.

Well, it’s a great example of taking a statement out of context. The 3min audio proves it. This is merely an argument over precedents, over which previous case should most apply to this one. The ACLU guy gives a very conditional, tentative “could be constitutional”, before explaining additional reasons why he believes it shouldn’t be.

Good judges often stress-test the lawyers from both sides, making them jump through hoops to justify their positions using precedent. But this audio only covers a small part of questions from a couple of the judges toward one side. I regard this as “skewed” news, not exactly fake, but definitely intentionally misleading.

Disregarding the Economist’s yammering nonsensical extrapolated conclusions from a map, note how pervasive is Marine LePen’s support in the first round (dark blue areas) compared to the second, more dubious round. There is no way her support dropped from round 1 to round 2. Something seriously wonky happened in the election.

Up to a third of Le Pen’s ballots were “spoiled.” Now the media is trying to say the voters did it to register discontent but there are many pics of her ballots appearing in the mail already ripped or marked.

Imagine in the first round, Le Pen vs. five others. If she gets 30 percent in some area and the other candidates get 20, 20, 15, and 15, she wins, the pixel goes blue. So even though she only has 30 percent support, she wins.

Second round. Le Pen gets 35 percent of the vote–an increase. But 65 percent are still against her…and they ALL vote for the SAME other candidate (because no other choice). Map goes yellow.

She won all those areas in the first round against divided opposition, but could not win against united opposition.

Instead of tamper proof, it’s built-in tamper ready for government to manipulate elections, dontcha know! LePen’s side complained about several departments spoiling ballots based on evidence brought to her attention. People reported receiving in their mail only 2 Macron ballots and none for LePen or 1 Macron ballot and 1 torn LePen ballot or a letter accompanying the ballots on mayoral letterhead recommending Macron. No doubt many of LePen’s ballots were also damaged after being properly put in the ballot boxes because you’ll note there were vertical folds on the ballot to make them fit in the slot. 12% of ballots were spoiled, highly irregular, and I guarantee they were 99% LePen. Even with all this tampering and L/R french media colluding to support Macron…he only got 42.5%.

After the big Sally Yates hearing on Capitol Hill today, the top senators on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism––Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse––appeared on MSNBC to discuss what they learned with Greta Van Susteren.

Graham repeatedly praised Yates by saying “she did the right thing by going to the White House general counsel knowing what she did” about Michael Flynn. He also twice referred to her as “incredibly credible.”

However, he’s also concerned that “somebody during this time period took classified information… and leaked it to the Washington Post.”

“You may like the outcome in this particular case,” Graham said, “but that process is bad for democracy. You cannot allow that to happen… I want to know who did that.”

As the Swedish gov. was throwing pensioners and others out of their apts. a couple years ago to make room for the new “refugees”, Bernie waxed nostalgic at one of his events about how great Scandinavian countries were, best economies in the world, etc etc.

It was pathetic. The guy lives in a 4 decade old fantasy world.

And 5 years ago, when Bernie said this, Venezuelans were already experiencing plenty of dire circumstances with food supply, etc.

Yes, sunny – I remember his ramblings – also that he has lived off of others his whole life – so naturally, he sees nothing wrong with it – now, he lives like a king because he got the ‘big payoff’ – what is sad about his rantings is that the young bought it –

Not sure he is uninformed, sunny – I think he knows exactly what he is doing – and could care less about others – guess his wife is the same way – she is now under scrutiny – shame on them!

Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. is running for Congress, challenging Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village), who represents the southern central coast and most of Ventura County, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Attempts to reach the Republican candidate were unsuccessful Monday, but GOP strategist Charles Moran, who will serve as Sabato’s fundraiser, confirmed the run. Strategist Jeff Corless will serve as a top adviser.

Four Reasons Why Talking to North Korea Would Be Smart Strategy
-1. Give Kim Jong-Un a forum to make concessions.
-2. Depart from the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” strategy and start the clock.
-3. Keep China on board while avoiding becoming over-reliant on Beijing.
-4. Help justify eventual military action in the eyes of the world, if it becomes necessary.

Circa has formally requested that the Trump administration declassify records showing how often government officials have searched National Security Agency intercepts for intelligence on U.S. presidential candidates, members of Congress, journalists, clergy, lawyers, federal judges and doctors and how often such Americans had their identities unmasked by the intelligence community after Barack Obama made it easier to do so in 2011.

Today, Nate Cohn of the NY Times makes the case that it’s possible Clinton’s lead had largely evaporated before Comey sent the letter.

The ABC/Washington Post tracking poll conducted over the same period as the Upshot/Siena poll of Florida, for instance, showed Mrs. Clinton’s lead at just two points, down from a double-digit lead after the third debate. That poll was also released after Mr. Comey’s letter.

Most important, the polls taken before the letter were as bad for Mrs. Clinton as those conducted after it. Again, there aren’t many of these polls, but taken at face value there’s a case that Mrs. Clinton had nearly or even completely bottomed out by the time the Comey letter was released. Even if she had not, the trend line heading into the Comey letter was bad enough that there’s no need to assume that the Comey letter was necessary for any additional erosion in her lead.

These polls are consistent with an alternative election narrative in which the Comey letter had no discernible effect on the outcome.